No Extension for Walker Kessler?

tksavis said:

Question about how next steps of restricted free agency work. Do we have a chance to talk extension before others start putting offers in (after the season ends)? Or do we now just have to wait and see what comes in from the market?

Click to expand...

Yes. They will have a window to talk. If his agent is worth his salt he will know what is out there for him and will have zero reason to settle with us for any kind of discount in that brief negotiating period.

Meh, Walker is a really good player who isn't a Max player. Those negotiations are always difficult. I love Walker, there have not been many bigger Walker defenders on the board than me, but there are reasons to wait on a contract.

1. Walker is way easier to deal as is than if he was signed to a large contract. Half the people on this board lamented not trading Lauri on his previous contract because now he is difficult to move on his new larger contract. If the Jazz made a mistake there, then this is a correction.

2. Signing Walker to a large contract locks your team into an identity. The Jazz have a lot of options on how to build their team right now. If you commit to Kessler, you are locking in to a certain play style, a play style that we just recently failed at. Conversely, this limits his league wide appeal. He is also a better target as a finishing piece rather than a building block.

3. Squeezing really good, non Max players as RFAs has a solid record of success. If he's good enough to start a bidding war, great! We win. If the jury is still out, we likely get him a a great price. What you cannot do is overspend on a Center in the modern NBA if that center is not Jokic.

That being said, I hope Kessler plays here for years to come.

Man, I freely admit to nothing almost nothing about the cap because it's math and utterly boring, but can someone explain how it's even possible for the Lakers to have two players making 100 million between them and somehow be in a position to even make trades, let alone sign free agents?

I guess my final conclusion on this is that Kessler's next contract is mostly up to what WAS (or anyone else) wants to do. They can give any contract Kessler wants and F us over. Even if nobody offers Kessler a deal, it doesn't mean we win out on waiting. If he plays well we're still probably playing him more than he asked for. We can't really know unless we know what Kessler asked for....but it's logical to think that the better Kessler plays the worse decision it was for the Jazz and vice versa. We protected ourselves against the possibility Kessler performs against the risk of him playing better and losing out on the discount we could have had.

Ultimately, I think the advantages we had in a potential rookie extension are much greater than RFA and being at the will of other teams. This is all without considering the potential damage to the relationship with Kessler this may have caused.

JimLes said:

Man, I freely admit to nothing almost nothing about the cap because it's math and utterly boring, but can someone explain how it's even possible for the Lakers to have two players making 100 million between them and somehow be in a position to even make trades, let alone sign free agents?

Click to expand...

You are assuming Lebron leaves after this year to get that cap space.

Also, the Jazz have done pretty well for themselves when they have large amounts of capspace and a plan to win. We haven't gotten the top free agents, but have done well with the Boozer and Okur level FA that every team but about 5 make do with.

framer said:

Also, the Jazz have done pretty well for themselves when they have large amounts of capspace and a plan to win. We haven't gotten the top free agents, but have done well with the Boozer and Okur level FA that every team but about 5 make do with.

Click to expand...

Not a bad point

framer said:

Also, the Jazz have done pretty well for themselves when they have large amounts of capspace and a plan to win. We haven't gotten the top free agents, but have done well with the Boozer and Okur level FA that every team but about 5 make do with.

Click to expand...

This is some alternative history. The Jazz have never bagged good free agents. Boozer is a special case because the Cavs and Boozer were trying to pull off some shady stuff and Boozer outwitted them: he was never a normal FA that had time to be courted by many teams.

Boozer aside, the best FAs that the Jazz were able to get in the last 30 years were Okur (following his 10-6 season), Bojan, Harpring and Raja Bell. Which is pretty underwhelming, TBH.

jazznik said:

This is some alternative history. The Jazz have never bagged good free agents. Boozer is a special case because the Cavs and Boozer were trying to pull off some shady stuff and Boozer outwitted them: he was never a normal FA that had time to be courted by many teams.

Boozer aside, the best FAs that the Jazz were able to get in the last 30 years were Okur (following his 10-6 season), Bojan, Harpring and Raja Bell. Which is pretty underwhelming, TBH.

Click to expand...

How many times have the Jazz had gobs of money to throw at free agents? Just the times you mention here, and these were all good free agents at the time we picked them up.

And Boozee ABSOLUTELY counts as a win in free agency regardless of the circumstances.

framer said:

How many times have the Jazz had gobs of money to throw at free agents? Just the times you mention here, and these were all good free agents at the time we picked them up.

And Boozee ABSOLUTELY counts as a win in free agency regardless of the circumstances.

Click to expand...

Well if you count on the situation with Boozer being repeated this summer... good luck!

But if we look at the actual list of the available free agents, the best players in 2026 are Kessler, John Collins, Mathurin and Ivey. So, yeah: if the Jazz throw gobs of money at free agents they can get Kessler and John Collins.

jazznik said:

Boozer aside, the best FAs that the Jazz were able to get in the last 30 years were Okur (following his 10-6 season), Bojan, Harpring and Raja Bell. Which is pretty underwhelming, TBH.

Click to expand...

This is what the second apron is meant to address. They’re trying to force an end to superteams and spread the stars out across the league. We’ll see if it works.

IMO, having Kessler on a contract that becomes <15% of the cap down the road is more valuable than <$10M in cap space this upcoming summer. But if we get Eason + Ellis I’ll happily be wrong. I don’t even know if there’s a guy worth $30M+ this summer we could target.